The Canon 500D Close Up Lens--Big "wow", little package.

8 Jun 2009

I had been toying with the idea of purchasing a macro lens for my Nikon D80, but wasn't wild about spending a lot of money. As I enjoy gardening and photographing the "fruits" of my labors, I wanted to be able to capture the flowers close-up.

In doing some research on macro photography, I learned about the close up lens. I bought a cheap one at a local camera store just to see how it worked. Not great. Tiny area of focus, lots of blur.

So I ordered the much-lauded Canon 500D (77mm) and the step-up ring to fit my Nikon lens. To be clear, the 500D isn't a lens, but is a relatively inexpensive accessory that screws to the front of your existing lens, exactly like a filter. It is designed to fit Canon lenses, so if you have a Nikon, you'll need to get an inexpensive adaptor "step up" ring, sold by most good camera supply stores.

When it arrived, I screwed the ring adapter and 500D onto my 18-200mm lens (over the UV filter) and headed out to the back yard.

What I saw through the lens was at times other-wordly. Little bugs, aphids, pollen, imperfections, and glorious detail. I am sure the neighbors thought I had lost my mind, muttering "holy cow" and "wow" every time I zoomed in on a flower or a bug or leaf edge. Little things became big as life. The zoom lens became a whole 'nother tool. And not only did I get some great pix (at least I think so), I found out what was chewing on my vines.

I'm a relative newbie to the world of photography, so maybe I'm just easily impressed with this kind of thing, but for just over $100, in my opinion, you get a lot of "wow" for not a lot of money.

Hi, Nicolas,
I was deciding between the extension tubes and the 500D (eventually I'll probably have both). Mostly I was factoring in space--where do I keep all my stuff, lol... I think the set of Kenko tubes was slightly more expensive, so the 500D won the toss-up.

"Yeah!" I'm really tempted to get the 500D filter myself now. I do have the Kenko extension tube set and I like them. There's just something about having lots of photography gadgets laying around. . . . "Yeah!" R